Western Fever
by The Bloodless
Summary: Set during the Western Air Temple episode. Instead of Combustion man turning up at the temple the Gaang go through with Sokka's plan to capture Zuko and take him as their prisoner when he is deemed too dangerous to be left unsupervised after burning Toph's feet. But after being injured by Toph after accidently burning her feet, how will the Gaang deal with a hurt and feverish Zuko?


**Title: Western Fever (Zuko orientated fic)**

 **Plot: Set during the Western Air Temple episode. Instead of Combustion man turning up at the temple the Gaang go through with Sokka's plan to capture Zuko and take him as their prisoner when he is deemed too dangerous to be left unsupervised after burning Toph's feet. But after being injured by Toph after accidently burning her feet, how will the Gaang deal with a hurt and feverish Zuko?..**

 **Relationships: Katara/Aang with mentions of Mai/Zuko and Suki/Sokka. Toph and Zuko have a brother/sister relationship.**

 **AN: Okay guys so this is my first A:TLA fic. I love this show so much, it got me through me so much when I was younger and it still gets me through lots now. I love and identify with Zuko's character so much and I love how he his portrayed and how his character builds throughout the show, he and this show are and always will be very close to my heart so I really hope this fic does them justice.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar the last airbender :(**

 *****With Zuko*****

Zuko scuffed his feet back to his camp he didn't know whether to be sad or angry. But what he did know was that he had no idea what he was going to do next. _If Uncle was here, he'd know what to do._ He also knew that he was soaking wet thanks to that Water Tribe girl soaking him with water before he was thrown out of the temple and told not to come back.

He ran a hand through his damp hair as he pushed through some bushes into a small clearing where his tent was set up as his temporary living quarters. It wasn't much but it was better than nothing and better than some of the places he and his Uncle had stayed while they were on the run. The Prince walked towards his little campfire pit that he had put out before heading off to talk to the Avatar, as to not cause a forest fire, and he started it up again with his firebending. He sat on the floor drying himself off in front of the fire while listening to his new and now probably only friend the Badger-Frog croak as it sat on the fallen tree on the other side of the fire.

"Can't you tell by the look of me how it went." Growled Zuko while glaring at the creature. It only croaked again in what could be interpreted as a response.

"Well it didn't go well. They didn't except me into their group. I left my home to help them, not that it felt much of a home anyway. I've branded myself a traitor to my own country. I don't feel much like a traitor though, I'm the crown Prince of the Fire Nation and I have a duty to protect my country and its inhabitants so one day I will return to my country and help set things straight and restore balance to the world. They all probably think the same that I did when I was younger, that the Fire Nation was just sharing our greatness with the rest of the world, but now I know the truth, we have waged a 100 year war for one reason and one reason only; power. I have no-where to go and I don't know what to do, all my hopes had rested with joining the Avatar's group and to help defeat my father but now...I can't do any of that...and I have to figure out what to do next and I have to do it all on my own because this time I don't have Uncle with me to help or guide me in the right direction. He's always been here to help me and how did I repay him? By stabbing him in the back and ignoring everything he's taught me, all I wish is to have him here next to me to spout some nonsense proverb and to talk about tea and to tell me what to do now because I don't know what to do.. I don't know what to do..." Zuko got quieter and quieter the more he spoke until he was left with no words just thoughts as he stared down at his lap ignoring everything else but his thoughts on his Uncle.

 *****With Toph*****

"Stupid, stupid, stupid, how is it that the blind one is the only one who can see anything around here." Muttered Toph to herself as the stomped around the temple. It was getting quite dark now, not that she could see that, but the fact that most of the birds had stopped singing signified that it was after dust and they were now settled in their nests. The Blind Bandit thought it was probably about time to trudge back to the camp and to the others for supper and then bed but she was still annoyed at a certain 3 members of the group for just completely disregarding the fact that Zuko could teach Aang fire bending.

"If I could convince and show them that Zuko could be a trusted and great addition to the team then they'd have to at least give him a chance to prove himself, right?" The only response she got was the sound of a Badger-Frog croak. "...Well done Toph now you're talking to yourself." Toph sighed as she made a tunnel with her earthbending and headed towards the forest where she suspected Zuko to be.

It wasn't long until Toph felt Zuko ahead of her, he was laying down on the floor by a fire, she brought herself top side and she felt a slight breeze move her bangs slightly in front of her glazed over eyes. She stepped over branches and waded through the bushes to get to Zuko's little camp site.

"Zuko?" called out Toph quietly.

 *****With Zuko*****

Zuko was asleep until he started hearing some rustling of the bushes, he'd learned over the years with living with Azula and living on the run to keep one ear or eye open at all times, even when sleeping. The rustling was coming from the edge of the clearing he was in, he sat up slowly turning towards whatever was making the noise in the bushes.

"Who's there? Stay back." Said Zuko clearly as he threw some fire towards the sound of another twig breaking. He was worried it was a rabid animal or Azula, even though they are basically the same thing. What if his father had sent Azula to follow him? Azula could be here to end him and the Avatar and he had led her straight to where they were all hiding in the bright red war balloon he stole. _Stupid! I should have dumped it somewhere and walked the rest of the way!_

"It's me!" shouted a high pitched voice that belonged to the young earthbending master. Feeling a strong heat move towards her which she could only presume to be fire and she put up an earth shield but made the mistake of stepping back and stepped directly into the heated flames that she had tried to avoid.

"Ow!" screamed Toph as the fire burned the soles of her feet and she fell back onto the ground. In that same moment Zuko blinked his eyes rapidly and rubbed away any trace of sleep from his eyes. "You burned my feet!" Shouted Toph, looking scared, although she would deny it if you said anything about it, but she couldn't see through her feet, she could only see through her hands but she needed them to earthbend, she couldn't see and earthbend at the same time with just her hands, she felt like an badger-mole in the middle of the ocean.

"I'm sorry, it was a mistake!" he shouted, jumping to my feet, looking worryingly at the girl in front of him. He rushed towards her but Toph lashed out throwing a large rock in his direction.

"Get away from me!" she shouted as she turned around and started to crawl away from Zuko, still throwing rocks behind her blindly at the scarred Prince. Zuko dodge the rocks jumping from side to side, getting closer to the small girl.

"let me help you," pleaded Zuko, eyes wide as he caught up to her. He didn't want her to get more hurt than she was. "I'm sorry." Apologised Zuko reaching forward, putting a hand on Toph who was still trying to crawl away.

"G-get off me, get off me" stuttered Toph loudly, turning over onto her back, thrusting her arms upwards, making a large mountain of rock come out of the floor, hitting the Prince in the torso, as the rock hit there was a grunt and a snapping sound from the recipient of the attack as it sent him flying upwards and backwards until he came crashing down with another massive grunt.

"I didn't know it was you," Shouted Zuko as he sat up only to wince and hold his left side. "Come back!" He all but begged as he watched her crawl away from him and into the darkness. Zuko screamed into the darkened heavens, laying on his back. "Argh, why am I so bad at being good?!" he questioned, not expecting to be answered.

Zuko lay there in despair for what seemed like hours, talking to himself. "Tonk, no Toph that was her name...I think.. I can't believe this, I burned her I am so stupid! What if she came here to say the group changed their minds and were letting me join! Argh! Stupid!" he shouted, only to wince when he tried to get up. Curling into his left side, he slowly pushed himself up and untied his robe, he looked down at his chest to see a growing reddish/purple mark forming on the left side of his rib cage along with a large cut running down the middle of his stomach with blood running freely from it. He gently ran his fingers over the bruise, pulling back and hissing straight away, knowing he had cracked if not broken ribs under his skin.

Zuko slowly dragged himself back to his tent and laid on his sleeping bag. He took off his sash and poured some water from his flask onto it and used it too dab at the blood coming from his cut and then laid it over the bruised ribs to cool down the area to try and relieve the pain, however the pain from his newly required injury's and exhaustion of not being able to sleep for the last few nights while at the palace finally caught up with him as he passed out.

 *****With Toph*****

Toph had crawled away from Zuko's campsite and away from his pleading, towards the air temple, when she finally managed to break through the walls and crash onto the floor by where she thought she could feel Aang, Katara and Sokka it was already a couple of hours past sunrise.

"Toph what happened?" asked a worried Katara as she ran towards the exhausted Toph who was laying face down on the floor.

"My feet got burned," replied Toph as if it were obvious, staring straight ahead at the two boys.

"Oh no, what happened?" asked Katara again as she kneeled down and looked at Toph's feet.

"I just told you my feet got burned." Said Toph, wrinkling her nose.

"I meant how." Deadpanned Katara.

"Well I kinda went to see Zuko last night," explained Toph.

"You what?!" exclaimed Aang.

"Zuko?!" questioned the water bender while her brother followed with a noise of disgust mixed with worry.

"I just thought he could be helpful to us, and if I talked to him maybe we could work something out..." explained Toph, trying to look as innocent as possible.

"So he attacked you?" exclaimed Sokka in his usual over the top manner.

"Well he did and he didn't, it was sort of an accident." Toph defended as Katara started to heal her feet with her waterbending healing abilities.

"But he did fire bend at you," said Aang pointedly.

"Yes," sighed Toph defeated.

"See, you messed with Zuko and you got burned...literally." said Sokka, throwing his arms about.

"Its gunna take a while for your feet to get better, I wish I could have worked on them sooner." Said Katara, finishing up all she could do for Toph's feet for now.

"Yeah me too," sighed Toph.

"Zuko is clearly too dangerous to be left alone. We're gunna have to go after him," sighed Sokka.

"I hate to go looking for a fight, but you're right. After what he did to Toph. I don't think we have a choice." Said Aang, walking towards the girls.

"He's crafty, but we'll figure out a way to capture him." Sokka followed Aang.

"Maybe just invite him back here, he's already offered himself up as a prisoner once," remembered Toph as she turned over making it easier for the boys to pick her up.

"Yeah... get him to come back and say he'll be our prisoner and then jump him and really make him our prisoner, he'll never suspect it." Sokka said excitedly.

"You are a master of surprise Sokka." Deadpanned his sister use to his nonsense by now.

Toph sighed in pleasure as the boys lowered her down to sit on the edge of the fountain, slipping her burned feet into the water. "Ahhhh, that's the stuff. Now I know how the rest of you guys feel, to being able to see with your feet stinks." Moaned Toph.

"Sokka you stay here and watch over Toph and the others, me and Aang will go and capture Zuko and bring him back here, you can try and turn one of the rooms we have in the temple into a cell." Ordered Katara.

"Yeah, I think I know a room. It's got a small window not even big enough for Momo to get through, and then Aang or Toph can use earthbending to block the door off with a giant rock!" exclaimed Sokka excitedly, while Aang just smiled at the sight of seeing his friend so excited, with all the war planning it was a nice change seeing Sokka happy about something.

"Come on Aang lets go." Ordered Katara, already walking towards the edge of the temple towards the drop to the forest. Aang raced over to her and helped her jump down to the forest floor with his airbending.

 *****With Zuko*****

Zuko blinked his eyes open slowly, he noticed the sun was rather bright for his normal rising time and it looked like he'd slept through sunrise and for a couple more hours more. He went to sit up before all the memories of last night came flooding back. He looked down at his chest and saw that his cut had gotten dirty during the night, so he must have rolled over while he was passed out. And his bruise on his left ribs had only gotten bigger and more tender. Zuko took in a deep breath and prepared himself for the day, he already felt dizzy, hot and light headed from sitting up but he decided to stand up anyway, pushing through it, he wrapped his bloody sash back around his robe tying it up, covering up his injuries.

The ex-Prince heard a twig snap in the bushes and turned towards where the noise came from and went into a fighting stance, even though he knew he couldn't fight anything in the condition he was in.

"Who's there?" he shouted.

"It's us, don't panic, we're not here to hurt you," said Aang coming out from the bushes.

"Speak for yourself. You burned Toph!" accused Katara, following after Aang.

"I-it was an accident, I didn't mean too, I didn't know it was her if I did I swear I would never have done it." Zuko held his hands out in defence. Katara growled at him. Zuko dropped his fighting stance. "And I mean you no harm, I won't fight you."

"Oh we didn't come here for a fight we came here to take you back to our camp," Aang said casually.

"You did? Thant's great. I thought for sure I blew any chance of joining you when I burned that girls feet," Zuko sighed in relief, smiling slightly and wiped some sweat off his forehead.

"We're not letting you join us. You're coming back as our prisoner." Glared Katara.

"Wait, what?...I thought." Zuko felt himself starting to sweat, was it getting hotter or was it just him.

"Well you thought wrong. Aang grab his stuff we'll bring it all back to the temple." Aang went along with Katara's orders not wanting to upset her already awful mood.

"Um, Avatar? Be careful I have a pair of swords in that pack, they are rather sharp." Warned Zuko as he tried to catch his breath, which was becoming more and more difficult to do.

"Is that a threat?" growled the girl of the current group, glaring furiously at the firebender.

"What?" Zuko didn't even register that he had spoken any words.

"Are you going to hurt Aang with those swords?" pressed Katara, she was getting mad. And an angry and irrational Katara is not someone you want to be around.

Katara used her water bending to push Zuko roughly back into a tree. Zuko winced and groaned in pain reaching to hold his left side but Katara stopped him by pinning his arms by his side with ice.

"What weapons do you have hidden in your robe," Katara demanded to know. However the Prince was too busy trying to control his breathing and the pain that he didn't hear her. "Aang search him."

Aang walked over to Zuko and pulled his robe apart, his eyes going wide at the sight of a bruised and bloody torso. "Katara...He's hurt and really bad by the look of it." Aang stepped to the side to let Katara see, the Avatars and the waterbenders shocked faces were the last things Zuko saw before he passed out.

 **Well that's chapter one done, this is probably going to end up as a three-shot but it maybe longer, I don't know yet. But anyway I hoped you liked it so far, if you did like it R &R and if you have any suggestions with what could happen next I would love to hear them :) **

**The Bloodless xxx**


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